But it's sad to see these low scores in some reviews where you can also find in the descripton that the tester didn't "appreciate" the old school design.

Sure the game isn't perfect and could have been better with some polish. But giving it a 5.5 based on

Might and Magic X is an unabashedly old school RPG experience that, despite one or two high notes, often only serves to remind us why so many of these mechanics were relegated to history.

or 6.0 with

Hardcore fans of old school western RPG’s may have a good time, but the majority will find it confusing and uninspired.

If I don't like sports games I won't test them.
It probably depends on the perspective and of course there are always people loving a game, even if it is horrible. But I think someone who tests the game should at least be within the target audience.

So in a way Spiderweb is lucky that their games are rarely tested by such sites as they wouldn't "understand" it. Maybe they would have received a higher score if there was a stamp with "Indie Developer" on it instead of "Ubisoft" as it in this case it's somehow ok when it's for a niche only.

I just hope that Ubisoft understands to interprete average scores and that the sales go well.

I wholeheartedly agree with the comments here. I also must say that the review scores are entirely too low for a game that delivered exactly what it said it would. I am thoroughly impressed by the game, it actually gets more enjoyable the longer I play, and it does a much better job of mixing up the encounters and loot than most current AAA titles.
A really solid game by this studio; I hope it is a retail success.

It's kind of tricky though isn't it? Especially if you have a genre that's a bit love/hate, like say old-school RPGs. Either you're a fan, in which case you could be accused of review bias in favour of the game which might cause other gamers to be misled, or you're not a fan, in which case you get accused of review bias for not joining in with fandom and not overlooking various things.

And no-where is the trickiness better shown than in the score. So once again, ignore the score, read the text, and if they're a good reviewer they'll cover both objective and subjective aspects of the game, enabling the reader to make up their own mind on the reviewers descriptions, even if they disagree with what it meant for the reviewer.

only serves to remind us why so many of these mechanics were relegated to history

Excuse me. These mechanics were relegated because monkeys couldn't play such games. And to make millions, you must sell your product to brainless animals.

Are critics there to bless sales or to bless art? Some do respect the art. Others… Don't care for art but are ranking games based on predictions how many copies the game will sell.
And the only real difference between humans and animals is - the art.

The best part about this game is how easy it is to modify the various things.
You don't like that your crusader can't specialize in 2 hand swords, edit a simple csv file. Life drain barely do any damange and is a waste of money? Increase the damage number a bit in another file. Monsters becomming to easy to beat? Increase the hp modifier in the config file.
This way almost anyone can tweak the game to be exactly what they like…

Originally Posted by joxer
Kordanor quoted the most important thing from one review:

Excuse me. These mechanics were relegated because monkeys couldn't play such games. And to make millions, you must sell your product to brainless animals.

Are critics there to bless sales or to bless art? Some do respect the art. Others… Don't care for art but are ranking games based on predictions how many copies the game will sell.
And the only real difference between humans and animals is - the art.

I'll ignore reading gameplanet articles in the future.

+1

You are absolutely right Joxer.

Game mechanics we loved and still love were removed in the '90s to reach a greater audience of non-CRPG players.

— For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. - HL Mencken

That doesn't quite mean the casual audience are all monkeys, though. They just have other interests on the side.

Unforgivable, I know

But MMX is a very nice throwback to great mechanics. It's clearly a thoughtful design, and it's not trendily old-school without a deeper understanding, like certain other games of this nature released recently, including Grimrock.

So I'm around level 23 and 30ish hours into the game. I still thin it is a 7ish game for the following reasons:
a) poor world layout esp with transition from mega easy to mega hard. Remember this game has absolutely no method of escape so if you place a mega hard critter next to a mega easy critter the only method of escape is reload (there is no sensible method provided to determine in advance that the critter is mega hard). Now perhaps most of you feel that constant reload is a reasonable game mechanic but somehow it feels very emersive breaking to myself.

b) virtually no tactics. This might be in line with 'old school' rpg but does that make it a great game ? When I say tactics the tactic in this game consist of which skills you pick during level up and which skills you use during combat. I'm not saying that combat is 'unfun' but rather it could be much better.

c) some very annoying bugs. If you are willing to accept constant reloads (ala point a) then I have to admit these bugs are not such a hassle since you have to constantly reload anyways.
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On the plus side I think teh graphics are fine; the performance is fine (yes there are a few areas where frame-rate drops to 5ish but it is not a big deal this is not a real time game and those areas are relatively infrequent. No major game ending bugs (yet) but I've heard a few whisper that there are a few. No crashes (I think people with windows 32 bit have a harder time). Interesting dungeon crawl (so far); goodish impelmentation for secret rooms; some interesting quests and some interesting puzzle though a few of them i've resorted to google due to impatience.
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Its not a bad game but it has a lot of flaws. Having said that I do agree with the opinion here that a reviewer who hates tbs or rpg should not be reviewing this game.

It did crash three times on me and I'm on x64 win. But it's related to memory leak - All three times I've played constantly for hours, like 6 hours without a pause, and then it went into some catastrophic slow performance and soon after crashed. Upon restart it worked again with no problems. That's not a serious bug really and will probably be sorted out with the upcoming patch.